A Penchant for Escapism

plane tickets, patron, abandon everything i own;meet me on a polish beach, the water pink and gold.late-dusk cafe dialogues, experiment new cuisinebut end up opting for mcdonalds when i see those arches gleam.yellow harmless sheen, bright as shame burningor even a righteous yearning that i resist within me.mom and sister still mourn, the other side of the worldwill still turn in unison with us. every distance i stretch,like muscles in the flesh, will pump less and lessblood to build us for debriefings on the end.

monday fragrancesimilar to the others, his haircutsimilar to my father's. i enter the marketfrom an alleyway adjacent. read the paper, read the faces-those peaches, i can taste them; they smell divine, so fresh.i never did learn to cook well, could never make none for myself;and i never did learn to love well, when it was the easiest thing to do.seagulls swing from me to you, and fly those nascent miles

there's no going backwards for me,now that you've stopped calling me each week or two.there was only so much i could salivatebefore temptation would no longer make me wait.the bites had sent a delugeof juices pouring out my mouth, dousing white, european linen in bruise-flavored stains.

The first stanza resonated in me like it was my own. Welcome to travel writing. Seems like you almost feel at home here. You pushed the boundaries of your comfort zone it seems to me. But you still relied on family. Until the end. Which is brilliant.

The second stanza is weaker, more verbose and abstract. I did not favour it, as for me, travel writing has a lot to do with the pace of the piece, the underlining rhythm and beat. You lost what you had going in the first stanza, but I thought it was so well crafted that despite that chunk in the middle, you started somewhere good and ended somewhere different.